


Falling

by earlybloomingparentheses



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:50:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2505164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlybloomingparentheses/pseuds/earlybloomingparentheses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Holmes,” you gasp unwillingly. Unable not to cry his name, though he never says yours. He is silent, sweat-soaked and white-knuckled and silent. Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

—and you’re falling, hurtling over the edge, away from him, this is what it feels like every time you spend yourself with him inside you, every time as if you’re hurtling away like he’s solid ground that’s opened up under your feet.

“Holmes,” you gasp unwillingly. Unable not to cry his name, though he never says yours. He is silent, sweat-soaked and white-knuckled and silent. Always. 

He leaves the traces of his own spending inside you as he pulls out with an inaudible grunt. You are wide open and ruined, ravaged, and he rolls out of your bed and walks, silently, out the door.

Every single case ends this way. Without a word.

\---

“No,” you tell your mirror. Your face looks out at you: stubborn jaw, tight lips below the imposing moustache—and helpless, needy eyes, betraying the fact that you have always already consented, always already said yes.

This isn’t something you can fight.

\---

In Afghanistan, you knew a fellow soldier in that most intimate and dangerous way. After each battle, each skirmish, each brush with death, you would wrestle each other to the ground, lose each other in an act that was as full of pain as desire. His hand would wrap around you as he pressed you to the wall, both of you panting and silent, overwhelmed by your continued existence and needing to confirm its truth in each other’s skin. During the day, you barely spoke, and neither of you pretended the sex was about anything other than yourself. 

That was easier. That hurt like nails and still it was easier.

It’s easier, you think, as the world’s greatest detective leaves your bedroom again without a backward glance, when the _not caring_ is mutual.

\---

Holmes values you. You know that. His affection for you is genuine, if distant and condescending. He calls you a “conductor of light”—too dim to shed much radiance yourself, but against your darkness he shines even brighter.

You don’t mind that so much. You have a pair of strong, skilled surgeon’s hands and you hold up admirably under pressure. You once saved a man’s life by amputating his leg with a dull saw. It doesn’t much concern you that you can’t keep up with the massive brain of Sherlock Holmes. Who can?

But you do have feelings. You’re not just a body for him to use when he needs it, like he uses morphine, a way for him to sustain a high or come down from it. You’re not someone he can just fuck and then walk away from.

Then again, you think as he does just that for the second time that week, maybe you are.

\---

—and you’re falling, and gasping out his name, and he’s shaking silently as he breaks apart inside you, and then there’s something wet on your neck and in one heart-stopping moment you realize that he is crying.

You go still. You say nothing. Shock overtakes you, and then the crushing knowledge that you _must not speak._

He rests his forehead on the back of your head, breathing shallowly. He has never stayed inside you this long—never stayed this long at all. You can feel his tears pooling, dripping down the sides of your neck. He raises one long hand—you can’t see it, only feel it move—and buries it in your hair.

And then, while your breath is frozen in your throat and you are so fragile that one movement would shatter you to bits, he retreats, pulls back, and before you can turn to look at his face he is gone.

\---

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” he asks, a raw strain running through his voice. He isn’t looking at you, but out the window, at the plane tree and the gray damp street. “What is the object of this circle of misery and violence and fear?”

There is nothing you know how to say in reply. You aren’t a philosopher. But as he stares out at the bleak sky with the look of a hunted animal in his dark eyes, you feel a sort of curtain begin to rise, a light begin to dawn. Sherlock Holmes begins to rearrange himself in front of your eyes: different now. He’s different. He feels things you didn’t know he could feel.

And in the next moment you realize with a frisson of dread that a flame has been kindled inside you, a fragile flame that is bound only to be extinguished. You look at Sherlock Holmes, and you feel hope.

\---

He’s exhausted, dragging himself up your seventeen steps and into the sitting room, too tired to stoke the fire though the air is cold. There is dirt and blood on his face, the results of a night more dully taxing than heart-poundingly dangerous. You only joined him halfway through, after the chase and well into the stakeout, so you are fresher than he is. You pull at his coat sleeves.

“Come, Holmes,” you say, trying not to let the tenderness you feel leak into your voice. You put on your doctor’s tone, hearty and matter of fact. “You’d better get cleaned up and get some rest.”

He growls and thrusts his hand against your chest—pushing you away, you think at first, with a truly pathetic surge of hurt; but then he stumbles forward, guiding you towards your bedroom.

“Not tonight,” you say, chiding him in that falsely full voice. It’s the first time you’ve ever said no. It’s only possible because this refusal has nothing to do with you. You’re his doctor now. You’re worried about him. 

But he growls again and pushes you backwards, and your feet move in spite of you, and soon you’re through the door and tumbling down onto your bed.

He climbs on top of you. He smells like grimy cobblestones. His hands are shaking.

“Holmes…” you protest as he paws at your clothes.

He pays you no mind. A flicker of irritation makes itself known through your worry.

“ _Holmes_ ,” you say, more sharply now. “I said no.”

He stops. His breathing is ragged, and for a long moment it is the only sound.

“Please,” he says, his voice breaking.

You see stars; your chest expands; you want to pull his mouth to yours and lick inside, claim him greedily, never let him go. But instead you put your hand on his waist and take a deep breath.

“The other way, then,” you say. You expect to sound wrecked by nerves. Instead, your voice is calm. “Lie down for me, just there.”

He stills. You can’t see his face, and for a panicked moment you fear you’ve made the worst miscalculation of your life. 

And then he moves over, on his front, and lets you pull down his trousers.

You are so gentle at first. He doesn’t like that. 

“You’re not well,” you breath in his ear as he bucks his hips up. “You must take it easy.”

“Only if you take me harder,” he growls and after that you can’t help yourself.

\---

—and then, minutes later, you’re falling, only now you’re anchored in him, now you’ve got something to hold onto, now your fall is arrested and when it’s over, when you’re both still, you realize that what happens next is up to you.

He isn’t moving, isn’t struggling to get out from underneath you. He is lying silently, docilely, with his face pressed to the pillow. You wonder for a nervous moment if you’ve broken him, but then you hear a tiny noise and you realize he has fallen asleep.

You pull back, as gently as possible, and he doesn’t wake up. You watch him sleep, dirty, battered, bloody, precious. You wonder if he’d want you to leave.

This is your bedroom. This is your flat. He is your detective, and you’re not leaving.

\---

“Holmes,” you murmur as you awaken, your eyes fluttering open to see him looking down at you, half-naked, legs crossed. His face is blank, or at least blank to you. You can’t interpret that ambiguous expression, those hooded eyes.

“You mean more to me than anything in the world,” you say from somewhere deep within the safe cocoon of half-sleep. You reach out and stroke his knee. You bring your lips to his bare skin.

His face slams shut. His eyelashes quiver minutely. He looks as though he is in deep pain.

You await your doom with a calm and a patience that you will later find nothing short of miraculous.

He makes a broken sort of noise and reaches out for you, wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, the angle awkward and his grip tight and the sound of his breathing jagged and harsh.

You are fairly certain that this is the only way he will ever be able to say _I love you_ , through fingernails digging into your skin and his chin pushed against your forehead. But you are also certain that _I love you_ is indeed what he is saying.

Waves of joy crash over you and the little flame inside you bursts into a blaze.

\---

—and you’re falling, coming apart as he comes apart inside you, silently and with as much pain as desire, and you are hurtling away—

And he catches you up in his arms and you are held by some dark creature twisted by the knowledge of the misery and violence and fear that holds the world in its grip, and you hold him in return, you hold him back—back from the edge, both of you pulling each other away from the abyss.

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes are from The Hound of the Baskervilles and "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box."
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ebparentheses).


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